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American Dream In The Great Gatsby And Raisin In The Sun

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The use of in “American Dream” has been used many times to explain the goals of characters in literature. In the Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1925, symbols are used to explain the American Dream from many different perspectives to express the problems of the rich and snobby. While in Raisin in the Sun, written by Lorraine Hansberry in 1959, shows the greed and struggles of the poor in Chicago. Both short pieces of literature give an insight into the American Dream within different people and how outside forces change the course of their dreams. The Great Gatsby was set in the early 1920s which is right after the First World War. It caused America to go through an increase of money in circulation, “America in the 1920s was …show more content…

In The Great Gatsby, Mr. Fitzgerald shows the horrors of the upper class and how most people only care about your money rather than you personally, “But it wasn’t any use. Nobody came”(page 133) is used to describe Gatsby’s funeral, which is ironic, since earlier at the party hundreds came to show off their wealth and to see Gatsby’s wealth. In Raisin in the Sun, Walter’s immense greed and desire for his liquor store overrun Mama telling him to put it into a banking account “‘[Mama]: And there ain’t going to be no investing in the liquor store…[Bobo] Man, Willy is gone” (pages 1566 & 1596) This jump allows the reader to infer that Walter spent a portion of insurance money on the liquor store, and the man he paid ran off with the money. It’s also ironic in the fact that this whole time no one is worried about the death of Big Walter and only cares about the $10,000, “[Walter]: THAT MONEY IS MADE OUT OF MY FATHER’S FLESH--”(page 1596) This is the first time someone has been in distress due to the death, however, Walter is still more focused on losing the money rather than losing his

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The last few paragraphs of F. Scott Fitzgerald's legendary novel, "The Great Gatsby" connect the dream of Jay Gatsby and the "American Dream" through the comparison of Jay Gatsby's dream and the dreams of others. Nick Caraway first compares the dreams and motivations of Gatsby and New York's first settlers in a similar way, as something that both parties had been long seeking out and visually portrayed through the use of the color green, in the case of the settlers this was the land they found and in Gatsby's case it was the green light at the end of Daisy's dock. Nick also compares the dream of Gatsby to the dreams of others by saying that "Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded

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The American Dream is a byproduct of pride that is shown in the play A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, and in the novella Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. In A Raisin in the Sun, the play follows a black family’s struggle to achieve their American Dreams to fruition. Walter Lee Jr. is the head

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The American Dream is a symbol of hope and opportunity inspiring people to pursue their dreams and become successful in America. This is a topic that was talked about in both books, “The Great Gatsby” and “A Raisin in the Sun.” Not everyone is able to achieve this dream. In the book, “The Great Gatsby” Gatsby tries to achieve his dream by becoming wealthy to win back his lost love, Daisy Buchanan. He throws parties and surrounds himself with luxury all to impress Daisy.

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1482 Words | 6 Pages

The American Dream is the enduring ideal that anyone can come from nothing, and through hard work and dedication, make something of themselves. The American Dream promises that regardless of your background, race or gender, if you work hard you can achieve greatness, however this is not always the case, and to those who are discriminated against, the American Dream remains just that - a dream. It is this discussion concerning the viability of the American Dream which both ‘The Great Gatsby’ by F. Scott Fitzgerald and ‘Hidden Figures’ by Theodore Melfi draw inspiration from. Written and set in 1920’s America, ‘The Great Gatsby’ utilises narrator Nick Carraway to tell the story of mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby and his journey to reunite

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1357 Words | 6 Pages

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald embodies the American Dream in a sense where it shows the way that the concept had been twisted by greed, self-satisfaction and near or full obsession. No one in The Great Gatsby ever truly obtains the “American Dream” as it is a fantasy- never having been a dream but more of a name for the failure of so many that try to better their lives but wind up making it worse. Dreams are unattainable and, though for a moment, it might seem one has grasped the dream, no one truly holds onto it. Jay Gatsby takes the American Dream as it is, a warped sense of self-improvement in one's life, and twists it further in a way that better exposes that the “American Dream” is just that – a dream. Greed is a seed of destruction

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616 Words | 3 Pages

The Great Gatsby and A Raisin in the Sun are two works of literature that explore the complexities of the American Dream and the challenges of achieving it. Despite their differences in setting, time, and plot, these two works share several similarities in terms of their thematic content and characters. Gatsby and The Younger family both explore the American Dream as a driving force for their actions, but while the former highlights the corruption and superficiality of the pursuit, the latter emphasizes the resilience and determination of the characters to overcome social and economic barriers to achieve their dreams making them similar rather than different. In both A Raisin in the Sun and The Great Gatsby, the American Dream serves as a

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The Great Gatsby and Of Mice and Men are two very great books that talk about the American Dream. Yes, both of these books do talk about the same thing and are based on the same thing but they are two different perspectives. The Great Gatsby happened to take place before the stock market crashed in 1929 and Of Mice and Men took place after. The timing of these two books makes a huge difference of their perspective of the American Dream.

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842 Words | 4 Pages

Fitzgerald emphasizes the futility and moral corruption of Jay Gatsby's pursuit of fortune, prestige, and love through the use of symbolism, metaphor, simile, and colloquialism. This finally results in his tragic failure, demonstrating the allure and impossibility of the American Dream. The main lessons to be learned from Fitzgerald’s novel are that the pursuit of the American Dream can result in moral degradation and disillusionment, and that this ideal is wrongfully pitched to Americans who want to live a life of prosperity. However, it is crucial to remember that the American Dream is a target to fight toward with grit and dedication rather than a promise of success and prosperity. In the end, what can be gleaned from The Great Gatsby is that the pursuit of an ideal can have both positive and negative repercussions, and that it is up to individuals to assess the true worth of their goals and

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How has the American Dream changed from the 1920’s to now and how has the theme of the American Dream been supported by works of American Literature. We will see how the American Dream though time did not follow what the founding fathers set out for us in the declaration of independence and when they said, “The authors of the United States’ Declaration of Independence held certain truths to be self-evident: that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness". We will see how the American Dream suffers, what an American Dream is centered on, and how, for some, the American Dream is unattainable. In "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald, "I Hear America Singing" by Walt Whitman and in "Harlem" by Langston Hughes we see the American dream depicted, as the loss and utter death of a distracted corrupt American Dream, as the love of the American dream, and as the American Dream for Blacks in a time of segregation and discrimination.

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735 Words | 3 Pages

In response to the simple idea of the American Dream, by the writer F. Scott Fitzgerald, the American Dream is a symbol of hope for success and that any goal can be achieved. Gatsby's lifestyle is portrayed as a corrupted dream: achieving his wealth illegally and attempting to resume an unattainable past love with Daisy. In the book The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald describes life during the 1920s and the craving for people to reach the American Dream. The author examines the corruption of Gatsby's life when trying to attain the American Dream.

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1268 Words | 6 Pages

The American dream is all about achieving your goals in life and being happy. Your goals in life are what leads you to your american dream. It doesn’t matter how much money you have or who your married to, if you don’t achieve the goals of your american dream then you may never be completely happy. We saw this with Gatsby, who had a lot of money and a lot of parties which seems awesome but they did not make him fully happy. Achieving your goals in life and your american dream will give you a huge sense of achievement and happiness.

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Where it prohibited importing or selling alcohol. Tom announces to Daisy in the middle of an argument with Gatsby, “I didn’t hear it. I imagined it. A lot of these newly rich people are just big bootleggers, you know.” (88).

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660 Words | 3 Pages

The novel The Great Gatsby by Scott Fitz Gerald embodies many themes. A major in the story is the pursuit of can be labelled the American Dream. The American Dream is defined as someone starting low on the economic or social level, and working hard towards prosperity and or wealth and fame. By having money, a car, a big house, nice clothes and a happy family symbolizes the American dream. The Great Gatsby shows what happened to the American Dream in the 1920’s, which is a time period when the dreams became corrupted for many reasons.

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The key to success is working hard to reach the goal. The workmanship and struggle for success can be called the American Dream. The idea of an American Dream has existed for a long time. The proof is its being a hidden theme for many American Literature stories. In Two Kinds by Amy Tan, there is an underlying theme of the American Dreams and there are different types of an American Dream .That is why the story should be included in the text books for the high school students to read.

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Extended Essay: American dream in the USA of the 1920’s, as depicted by “The Great Gatsby” by F. S. Fitzgerald Introduction The modern American literature is a topic as broad as it can be; there is, however, one novel which often appears as the one called “the greatest American novel of all times”. The novel in question is “The great Gatsby”, written by Francis Scott Fitzgerald and published in April of 1925. [1] There are a number of reasons for why it is deemed so special, with its’ current position in modern pop culture and status of a classic, compulsory for every reader. One of the major causes is the layered meaning, which leaves whole lot of room for interpretation.

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